Brutus, Marcus Juniusalso called Quintus Caepio Brutus ( born probably 85 BC—died 42 BC, near Philippi, Macedonia [now in northwestern Greece] ) a leader Roman politician, one of the conspirators who assassinated the Roman dictator leaders in the conspiracy that assassinated Julius Caesar in March 44 BC. The Brutus was the son of Marcus Junius Brutus (d. 77), he acquired the alternative name Quintus Caepio through adoption by his who was treacherously killed by Pompey the Great in 77) and Servilia (who later became Caesar’s lover). After his adoption by an uncle, Quintus Servilius Caepio.

Brutus joined Pompey’s army on the outbreak of the Civil War between Pompey and Caesar in 49. He was pardoned by Caesar after Pompey’s death the next year, and Caesar appointed him governor of Cisalpine Gaul in 46 and city praetor in 44. Nevertheless, Brutus resented Caesar’s autocratic rule and longed for the restoration of republican government. Hence he joined Gaius Cassius Longinus’ plot to murder Caesar. Brutus’ prestige attracted several dozen other senators to the cause.

Five months after the assassination, Brutus and Cassius were forced by the Caesarian commander Mark Antony to leave Rome for Macedonia, where they raised an army against him. In February 43 the Senate granted them supreme command in the East. Brutus defeated the Caesarians under , he was commonly called Quintus Caepio Brutus.

Brutus was brought up by another uncle, Cato the Younger, who imbued him with the principles of Stoicism. In the 50s he opposed Pompey’s increasing power, but, upon Caesar’s invasion of Italy in 49, Brutus was reconciled with Pompey and served under him in Greece. When Caesar defeated Pompey at the battle of Pharsalus in 48, Brutus was captured. He was soon pardoned by Caesar, probably as a result of his mother’s influence. Brutus became a member of the senior priesthood of the pontifices and from 47 to 45 governed Cisalpine Gaul (now northern Italy) for Caesar. Caesar appointed him city praetor (a high-ranking magistrate) in 44 with Gaius Cassius Longinus, and he named Brutus and Cassius in advance as consuls for 41. Brutus married Cato’s daughter Porcia after Cato’s death in 46.

Long optimistic about Caesar’s plans, Brutus was shocked when, early in 44, Caesar made himself perpetual dictator and was deified. Always conscious of his descent from Lucius Junius Brutus, who was said to have driven the Etruscan kings from Rome, Brutus joined Cassius and other leading senators in the plot that led to the assassination of Caesar on March 15, 44 BC. Driven from Rome by popular outrage, Brutus and Cassius stayed in Italy until Mark Antony forced them to leave. They went to Greece and then were assigned provinces in the East by the Senate. They gradually seized all of the Roman East, including its armies and treasuries. Having squeezed all the money he could out of Asia, Brutus turned the wealth into Roman gold and silver coins, some (following Caesar’s example) with his own portrait on them. In late 42 he and Cassius met Mark Antony and Octavian (later the emperor Augustus) in two battles at Philippi. Cassius killed himself after being defeated in the firstengagement of the Battle of Philippi, but his army was crushed by Antony and Octavian in a second encounter three weeks later (Oct. 23, 42). Recognizing that the republican cause was lost, he committed suicide.Although Brutus was admired by his contemporaries for his dignity and idealism, he was extortionate and cruel in his financial dealings with provincials. William Shakespeare’s portrayal of and Brutus did likewise after being defeated in the second. Mark Antony gave him an honourable burial.

Contrary to the principles he espoused as a Stoic, Brutus was personally arrogant, and he was grasping and cruel in his dealings with those he considered his inferiors, including provincials and the kings of client states. He was admired by Cicero and other Roman aristocrats, and after his death he became a symbol of resistance to tyranny. Shakespeare found in the Parallel Lives of Plutarch the basis for his sympathetic portrayal of the character Brutus in the play Julius Caesaris flattering. A Stoic, Brutus wrote a number of philosophical treatises and other literary works, none of which has survived. Only two of the nine books of his correspondence with the famed orator Cicero are extant.

Brutus was an eminent orator of the Attic school of public speaking— i.e., he adhered to rhetorical principles based on notions of naturalness in reaction to trends toward excessive displays of emotion (of the Asiatic school)—and he wrote many literary works, all lost. Some of his letters survive among Cicero’s correspondence.